Fake news about pinhole. Photomag competition, Tutorial Tuesday.

I regularly hear about the pinhole as the first camera, when I explain my photographic work to the pinhole the amateurs often say to me: "Oh yes, you do that with the first cameras", I even heard it on a national TV channel.
Well, no, not at all!
The pinhole principle (a dark room with a tiny hole allowing the formation of an image in the bottom of it) has existed since the 4th century BC in China, a century later (-400 BC) Aristotle used it to observe solar eclipses, then the system is used by artists in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it is also an educational tool to understand the course of light.

From the 16th century the hole is replaced by a lens for more definition.

Nicephore Niépce created the first photograph in 1826 with a camera equipped with a lens, if he had used a pinhole, the initial 24-hour exposure would have been several days (weeks?).

The pinhole does not arrive until much later in photography, taking advantage of sensitive surfaces much more powerful. We find traces of it in scientific journals around 1850, but it remains marginal since very quickly it is the race to technology, we want clear photos and taken quickly (already...).

Photo @jclomo 7seconds exposure

In our time we are still some to use it, it is a photograph who it is necessary to take time, indeed the times of pose can go from one second to one hour in general, but some can ask several days ,several weeks, it is the principle even of the slowphotography .

Photo @jclomo 5 seconds exposure

Most stenopists claim to be part of the Foto Povera, an artistic movement linked to the famous Arte Povera of the 1960s.
The photographer chose to abandon the conventional material, he relies only on his inspiration and his art while freeing himself from the cultural institutions and the pressure of the public.